pangs of which I feel, I will exhibit it, my daughter, to the gaze of all, and in the heart of a king display that of a man. King Psy. I deserve not this violent grief. Seek, I pray, to resist the claims it asserts over your heart, whose might a thousand events have marked. What! for me, my Lord, you must abandon that kingly firmness of which, under the blows of misfortune, you have shown such perfect proofs? Psy King. In numberless occasions firmness is easy. All revolutions to which ruthless fortune can expose us—loss of rank, persecution, envy's venom, hatred's dart—present nothing which the will of a soul, but a little swayed by reason, cannot easily brave. But those rigours which crush the heart under the weight of bitter grief are … are the cruel darts of those severe decrees of fate which deprive us for ever of our loved ones. Against such ills reason offers no available weapons. These are the direst blows that the gods in their wrath can hurl against us! King Psy. My Lord, one consolation is still left you. Your marriage has been graced with more than one gift from the gods, and by hiding me from your sight, they with open favour deprive you of nothing but what they have not carefully made good for you. Enough remains to relieve your sorrow, and this law of heaven which you call cruel leaves sufficient room in the two princesses, my sisters, for paternal love wherein to place all its kindness. Psy King. Ah! empty comfort to my sorrow. There is naught that can console me for thy loss. My grief fills my soul, I am conscious of nothing else; in presence of such cruel destiny, I look to what I lose, and see not what I still retain. King Psy. My Lord, you know better than myself that we must rule our will by that of heaven; and in this sad farewell I can only say to you that which you can much better say to others. These gods are sovereign lords of the gifts they deign to offer us; they leave them in our hands so long only as it pleases them; when they withdraw them, we have no right to murmur over the favours which their hands refuse any longer to pour upon us. My Lord, I am a gift they have offered to your vows, and when, by this decree, they wish to take me back, they deprive you of nothing that you do not hold from them; and it is without a murmur that you must resign
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